Ask an AI for "ideas for a birthday party" and you'll get the same suggestions as everyone else. With a few techniques, you can push it toward more original thinking.
Ask for quantity first
Request 30 or 50 ideas. The first ten are usually obvious; the interesting ones appear later in the list.
Add constraints
Constraints spark creativity: "ideas that cost under $50", "ideas that work for introverts", "ideas that could be done in 10 minutes".
Use creative lenses
- Reverse it: "How could we make this worse?" then flip the answers.
- Combine: "Mix [idea] with [unrelated field]."
- Perspectives: "How would a child, an engineer and a chef solve this?"
- Extremes: "What would this look like with 10x the budget, or no budget?"
Iterate on the best ones
From your list, pick the 3 most unusual ideas and develop each
into a short plan with the first step, cost and biggest risk.Bring your own ideas
Share your rough ideas and ask AI to build on them, critique them, or find what's missing. The best results come from a mix of human taste and AI volume.